'This vile legislation might as well be called the Donald Trump Act'

Democrats in Congress are jumping on an opportunity to tie
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to a bill
that Republicans had hoped to push through Congress.

US Senate Democrats Tuesday blocked a vote on a bill to
cut off federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities.

Those municipalities do not comply with US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement orders to hold immigrants living in the
US illegally beyond their scheduled release date if they are
picked up for low-level crimes.

Trump has frequently raised the issue of sanctuary cities on the
campaign trail. And he has cited the general threat of
crimes committed by immigrants living in the US without
permission as a reason to deport those approximately 11
million immigrants — and to force Mexico to fund a border
wall along the US-Mexico border.

"This senseless and totally preventable act of violence committed
by an illegal immigrant is yet another example of why we must
secure our border immediately,"
Trump said earlier this year. "This is an absolutely
disgraceful situation, and I am the only one that can fix it.
Nobody else has the guts to even talk about it. That won't happen
if I become president."

Democrats, who claim that
sanctuary-cities policies benefit community policing, wasted no
time Tuesday linking Trump to the proposed legislation.

"This vile legislation might as well be called the Donald Trump
Act, like the disgusting outrageous language championed by Donald
Trump," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said on the
Senate floor. "Republicans are not really proposing this bill to
solve any problems within our immigration system. This Donald
Trump Act was designed to demonize immigrants and spread the myth
that they are criminals and threats to the public."

This isn't the first time Democrats have attempted to tie Trump
to immigration legislation. Earlier this year, Democrats also
stamped the Trump brand on a similar bill in the US House of
Representatives aimed at defunding sanctuary cities.

"This bill isn't intended to solve the problem but rather to
demonize immigrants and appease the angry, anti-immigrant, Donald
Trump-Steve King wing of the Republican Party,"
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California)
said then, referencing US Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa),
a vocal border-security hawk.

Trump's call to defund sanctuary cities has become wrapped
up in the debate over legislation to defund sanctuary cities.

During a Senate hearing in July, for example, the mother of a man
murdered by an immigrant living in the US illegally praised
Trump for bringing attention to the issue.

"[T]hank you to Mr. Trump for getting a message out about the
nation in two minutes that ... families like my own have been
trying to say for five to six years," said the
mother, Laura
Wilkerson.

"It feels good to be heard. Whether you love him or whether you
don't, I felt heard," she added.

US
Sen. Marco Rubio.AP Photo/Mark
Lennihan

On Tuesday, Democrats were also keen to link Trump's opposition
to sanctuary cities to another Republican presidential candidate:
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), a cosponsor of the bill.

On Tuesday, the DNC also held a press call
featuring several congressmen that was dedicated to slamming
Rubio's support for the law, as well as the senator's poor
Senate attendance record.

For his part, Rubio defended his support of the bill by saying
that the San Francisco murder of Kate Steinle
"exposed the dangers of an inconsistent and ineffectual
immigration enforcement policy, which encourages flagrant
violations of our laws."

Despite Trump's high-profile comments about sanctuary cities, he
and Rubio are hardly the only 2016 Republican candidates who
have moved to address the issue.

Sens. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced
legislation earlier this year that would partially cut funding to
cities that do not comply with ICE detainer requests, and
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, said earlier this year
that mayors of cities that do not honor ICE
requests should be arrested.

Tuesday's bill has little to no chance of becoming
law. Before Senate Democrats blocked its passage
Tuesday, the White House threatened to veto the legislation if it
made its way to US President Barack Obama's desk.

But some conservatives have floated a hardball strategy that
would attach the sanctuary-city funding to a must-pass piece
of legislation, potentially raising the specter of a showdown
that could lead to a government shutdown.

"If a party-line vote blocks it, then the next step is not simply
to have a vote. The next step is to attach this legislation to
must-pass legislation and to actually fix the problem," Cruz
said earlier Tuesday,
according to The Hill.